The invention relates to a method for producing an adhesive closing component having a plurality of interlocking means designed having a carrier, the interlocking means configured on one of the two sides of the carrier, whereby an adhesive medium is applied to the opposite side and whereby on the side of the carrier carrying the interlocking means is at least partially applied a separation or barrier layer containing silicon.
Such manufactured adhesive closing components can be wound in the form of strip or surface material forming rolled bundles, whereby the relevant adhesive medium is understood to be generally in the form of a molten rubber base adhesive with a covering paper, in order to avoid having the adhesive medium become tightly adhered to the interlocking means arranged there under. The adhesive medium serves subsequently to secure the adhesive closing component in some manner dependent upon its intended use to a flooring or to a diaper material, insofar as the adhesive closing component serves for the fastening of a carpet material and/or as closing component for a baby diaper or the like. Since adhesive closing components are used in large-scale production technology, and for their subsequent processing for example in the area of baby diapers, the components are connected through automatic processing machines with the diaper material, whereby they are subjected to very high production velocities, wherein the covering material of the adhesive medium frequently presents a problem, since this covering material must be pulled off, carried away and disposed of before the actual processing of the adhesive closing component. If the thin covering paper is torn away and if the adhesive closing component together with the remaining covering paper is fed to the processing machine, the entire production process is disrupted, which frequently can lead to high breakdown costs.
From DE-U-94 21 906, seen as present state of the art, a loop closing material assembly with no cover as well as a method for manufacture of the same with one or more multiple-layer loop closing material layers for the loop component of an interlocking and loop closing arrangement is already known, whereby the loop closing material in the following sequence is made up of:
1. a loop layer on its main surface, whereby the loop layer includes a plurality of flexible loops, which, with the complementary interlocking part of the interlocking and loop closing, are suitable to function in detachable engagement and whereby said loops are anchored on a carrier, and
2. an automatic adhesive layer on its second primary surface.
In the case of this known solution the loop closing material is arranged in the assembly in such a manner that the adhesive layer of a section of the loop closing material and lying over the loop closing material is found in direct contact with the loop layer of a section of the loop closing material lying thereunder, whereby the loops are provided in such a manner that with the removal of the section of the loop closing material from the assembly lying over it, the loops being carried along by the adhesive material are aligned upright and thus offer the section lying thereunder a capacity for engagement. To ensure the resulting effect, a separation or barrier control means is inserted in the material of the loop layer, whereby with the known solution even reactive silicon can be used. Consequently, all of the loop material must be provided with effective means for separation control, in order to maintain the described effect. This entails use of considerable quantities of silicon-containing separation or barrier control material, which influences the known method then by involving costly and expensive production. Despite the resulting complete siliconizing, it can occur therefore that the relevant loop of the loop material is in contact with only a small contact surface, with the adhesive layer of the carrier lying over it and with the interlocking means then in the form of loop material. Consequently the adhering forces are then smaller than those in the environment of the closing material, of which the loops are more or less completely in contact with the adhesive medium. Because of this very different characteristic then a different pulling off behavior with different pulling off forces is to be observed, which involves greater difficulty in the handling of the rolled-up closing material. Furthermore repeated winding up and out of the loop-closing assembly with corresponding adhering of the material layers is possible only with great difficulty.
Starting from this state of the art the object of the invention is to further improve an adhesive closing component using adhering means in such a manner that this closing arrangement can be produced at low cost and efficiently with simplified handling and pulling-off characteristics. Such an object is obtained by a method having the features found in claim 1.
Owing to the fact that according to the disclosure part of claim 1 the interlocking means are formed of stems having enlargements at their ends and that the silicon-containing separation or barrier layer is applied in the cavities in the enlargements forming the individual interlocking heads in a reinforcing manner and the stems are held essentially free by the silicon-containing separation or barrier layer, with a slight material addition to the silicon-containing separation or barrier layer material and/or to the separation control means, the effective desired winding up and out characteristic can be attained for the strip-like adhesive closing component. Since the silicon-containing separation or barrier layer is distributed in essentially equal portions in the relevant frontal cavity of each interlocking head, a uniform opening and unwinding behavior is therefore attained, so that there is a uniform force distribution of the adhesive forces between adhesive layer and interlocking material. Therefore it is novel and remarkable for an expert in this art that the disclosed method with the indicated measures not only attains a uniform pulling-off behavior, but that with the manufacturing method according to the invention an adhesive closing component is obtained with which it is possible to undertake multiple winding up and winding out processes, whereby the repeated winding up and out processes lead in turn to a corresponding but not permanent adherence of interlocking means with the adhesive medium lying over it. Besides, the quantity of separation or barrier silicon material to be used is optimized in such a manner that in any case either the adhering-or the peeling off-forces are small in such a manner that the winding of the adhesive closing component off of the bundled roll for further processing is not compromised or negatively influenced even when robotic mechanisms are used. Besides, the covering material in the form of a covering paper or the like covering the adhesive medium also can be completely abandoned, which likewise makes the subsequent processing of the adhesive closing component simpler and more reliable.
In the case of one preferred embodiment of the method according to the invention silicon acrylate is used as separation or barrier layer, and a hardening method by means of radiation is provided for the hardening. It has been shown that particularly solvent-free silicon acrylate which is 100% radiation-hardenable leads to very good results and the adhesive medium adheres as little as possible to the silicon acrylate, insofar as it is hardened.
In one particularly preferred embodiment of the method of the invention the interlocking means consist of stems having enlargements on the ends, for the manufacture of which a plastic material is fed into a gap between a pressure tool and a molding tool and these tools are then driven so that the carrier is formed in the gap and is conveyed in the direction of conveyance, whereupon on the molding tool a screen having hollow spaces passing all the way through is used as molding-shaping element, by which the interlocking means are formed in such a manner that the plastic material hardens at least partially in the hollow spaces of the screen. The resulting method of manufacture for the carrier is known from DE 198 28 856 C 1. As a result, in large-scale measure very rapid manufacture of the starting material in the form of strip or surface adhesive closing components can be manufactured to be coated thereafter.
The silicon-containing separation or barrier coating is preferably in
gaseous or vaporous state, or
fluid, pulp, mash or pasty state, or
ionized state as a result of electrolytic or chemical separation, or
solid, particularly granular or powdered state
and in one of these states is applied to the plastic material. Thus it has been proven as a particularly favorable manufacturing technique for the radiation hardening of the separation or barrier layer to use at least one UV-radiation source. Furthermore this provision has produced particularly good cavity-filling behaviors, insofar as the adhesive medium used in this case is an adhesive on a rubber base.
In one particularly preferred embodiment of the method according to the invention in the cavities of the enlargements forming the interlocking heads the silicon separation or barrier layer is applied in a reinforcing manner and the stems are held free essentially by the silicon separation or barrier layer. Since the interlocking heads which are thus coated are provided with a sort of a sliding layer, the corresponding loops or engagement parts of another adhesive closing component, which together with the first adhesive closing component forms the adhesive closing, slide on the reverse sides of the corners and edges of the interlocking heads, which leads to improved interlocking behavior with the result that higher detachment forces are required to detach the adhesive closing involving separation of the adhesive closing components. The effect is then obtained that the loop material no longer comes to engage directly on the interlocking heads, but rather slides away from them because of the separation coating and engages in the intermediate spaces between the interlocking heads and there and then causes the interlocking to take place.
In addition, with the method of the invention it is preferably provided that a thermoplastic plastic is used as plastic material. The method of the invention furthermore provides that the adhesive closing component is rolled up into transportable bundles, so that the adhesive medium is in direct contact with the interlocking means lying under it.
Thus it is shown that in the direction of conveyance of the adhesive closing component the velocities at which the coating process can be carried out are between 10 and 100 m/min. This remarkably increases the speed of production of the adhesive closing component of the invention, whereby these manufacturing velocities could not be attained insofar as the adhesive medium would be provided in traditional manner with a covering strip or covering paper.